


The Ransom of Tony Stark

by antigrav_vector



Series: (R)BB fics - all pairings [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, Get Together, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Kidnapping, M/M, Mission Fic, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Alternating, POV shifts, Rescue Missions, Torture, Whump, goes AU after IM3 and before Cap2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:47:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As tends to be the case with anything involving the Avengers, the day starts out routine, and rapidly goes sideways. This day is no different; What was supposed to be a routine recon mission suddenly turns into a rescue...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Arting courtesy of [ssyn3](http://ssyn3.livejournal.com/27075.html)! Lookit! She's absolutely wonderful!
> 
> With thanks to my lovely beta readers: lil_1337, and MusicalLuna. Without them, this would have turned out a lot less coherent.

"Captain," Coulson's calm voice came clear as crystal through the comm set Steve had been about to remove, now that he had finished with his training run. He'd been working with Clint and Natasha not five minutes prior, and both agents had only just disappeared into the locker rooms nearby to clean up. Refocusing his attention, Steve waited for Coulson to finish, "please report to conference room two-A for a briefing in ten minutes, or as soon as possible."

He carefully pressed the tiny button on his comm that allowed him to respond, still a little uncomfortable with the technology. It was Tony's design, rather than SHIELD's, still brand new and not yet battle tested. Trying it out had been one of the tasks for today's training run. "Agent Coulson. What's the situation?"

"I have a mission assignment for the available members of your team," was the concise reply.

Now, what that meant exactly, Steve didn't bother trying to pry out of their handler over the comm link. Knowing Coulson, he wouldn't be persuaded to share details over a potentially unsecured line, even while in headquarters. They had yet to find any weaknesses in the new comm links, but that didn't mean there were none. "I'll be there in five."

For a moment, he debated shucking the heaviest of his gear and cleaning up. Deciding it was not really worth the effort when Coulson had seen him in worse shape and would take more than the five minutes he'd allotted himself, he just kept his gear on and left everything else where it was. Anyone who messed with his things would be found out soon enough, and it wasn't like he had anything highly valuable in his gym bag. No one would be likely to bother with some dirty laundry and a bar of soap. He did take off his helmet, though, taking the time for a quick rub down of his head and the inside of the helmet with a borrowed hand towel. That would do for now, in place of a proper shower. The others would cope.

The conference room wasn't far, just up a single flight of stairs and a short distance down a well-lit corridor. The room itself was small, only barely big enough for eight people, and slightly cramped when there were actually eight people present. Right now, though, the tally consisted of Coulson, Natasha, and Clint.

"Cap," Clint grinned, looking up from where he was fidgeting with the laces of his boots, his feet propped up on the conference room table, "fancy seeing you here."

Coulson was too professional to actually roll his eyes, but a slightly long-suffering expression appeared on his face for a moment. "Captain Rogers, agents. There is a developing situation in the northern reaches of the territory of Alberta, Canada. Energy signatures with a striking similarity to the Chitauri weapons SHIELD collected in the wake of the Invasion have been detected by one of our satellites."

Clint sobered at that. "So what are we doing about it, sir?"

"Right now, nothing. You three are being sent in strictly for reconnaissance. Under no circumstances should you engage unless _absolutely_ necessary. And that includes all variations of your explosive and trick arrows, Barton."

"Aww, I never get to have any fun."

Coulson's expression didn't change, but his tone took on a hint of steel. "Need I remind you, Agent Barton, that the only reason we are being allowed to take an active part in this investigation and violate Canada's sovereignty is the energy signature we've detected."

Steve decided he needed to head that lecture off at the pass. "Agent Coulson," he interjected as Clint sat back with a huff, "do we have any information on the location itself or who is behind this?"

The line of Coulson's shoulders relaxed fractionally. "Nothing confirmed, though there are reports of several possible missing persons potentially sighted in the area. There might be some trafficking operation based nearby, as well. The suspected location of the compound is based on the location of the detected energy flare: approximately 23 miles northeast of Fort McMurray, coordinates 56°59'12" N, 110°51'28" W."

Steve nodded, storing away the information. "And will the rest of the team be joining us on site?"

Coulson shook his head. "Mr. Stark is unavailable, at Ms. Potts' request; he has some public appearances to make in the next 48 hours that he can't duck out of for a recon mission. Thor is... away, and Dr. Banner has declined to take part, citing his lack of subtlety. He and Mr. Stark will be called on later for any scientific analyses, if they're deemed necessary."

With that, the briefing was over. Clint and Natasha disappeared to gather their gear, and Steve double-checked his before following their lead. He was wearing most of it already, but if they were going to be venturing that close to the arctic circle in March, he was damn well going to use his cold-weather gear, and stash away some emergency supplies where he could. He knew the drill; working with the Howling Commandoes, he'd often been in similar situations.

The flight from New York to their assigned landing zone was a trial in more ways than one. The first two hours were utterly uneventful. Steve spent them staring out his window.

He was fairly sure this would be a straightforward mission, albeit probably a long one.

They hadn't been assigned any reconnaissance missions together yet, however, so this would be a learning experience for all three of them. And Coulson had apparently either sensed as much or gotten a hold of his ancient army dossier somehow. Reconnaissance missions had almost always meant he was stuck coordinating rather than out in the field when he'd run them with the Howling Commandoes. Only a few had ever required him to do more than keep watch.

The problem was that he was instantly recognisable, all the more so in uniform than out of it, and far more comfortable running a frontal assault, to boot, which made him less than ideally suited to this kind of more subtle work. No, all in all, he was better suited to playing backup, in the event of any sudden firefights. Not that knowing that made the waiting any easier.

It also meant that their roles on this mission had been carefully chosen by their handler.

Clint had been assigned to locating a sniping perch near the site and providing Natasha with support and covering fire if they were discovered. Meantime, Natasha would be spending her time actually physically scouting out the area and the compound itself. Steve would be waiting with the Quinjet, a mile or so farther out than Clint so as not to blow their cover with his brightly colored target of a uniform, close enough to the action that he could reach them in under three minutes. He didn't like it; three minutes could well be the difference between the success or failure of the mission.

"Hey, Cap," Clint called from the cockpit, breaking into his thoughts, "when you finally gonna tell Stark you're interested?"

"What?" Steve had to force the word out, distracted as he was by trying not to give in to the blush he could feel rising under his skin. His attention to the mission dropped to zero. Had he been that obvious? "What are you talking about?"

Steve didn't have to turn to look to know Natasha was smirking at him, amused.

"Oh, come on. What the hell are you waiting for," Clint needled him a little further, sensing he'd hit a nerve, "You know he wouldn't turn you down."

Not quite sure how to respond to that, Steve paused, knowing with a sinking feeling even as he did that it was a mistake. That he was giving away too much.

"I don't often agree with Clint as fully," Natasha added, her tone level and calm as always, "but the unnecessary tension is getting annoying."

"What tension?" Steve tried.

"The ridiculous sexual tension every time he walks into a room you're in!" Clint burst out. "The fucking constant flirting. The-- the-- fuck! Just pin him to a wall and put us all out of our misery, will you?"

The blush was back and deeper, this time. Steve coughed, feeling a bit awkward in his own skin.

Natasha said nothing, content with the outcome of the conversation for the moment, and the silence drew out. Steve didn't reopen the topic. He'd lost this round, and pretty thoroughly.

The trip would take them another three hours, though, and Steve knew he'd spend every minute of it worrying at the idea. Maybe he _should_ just take their advice...

And that was when he realized he was screwed. Well. Metaphorically, anyway. That he was spending more time worrying about how to ask Tony out than about the mission he was _currently on_.

Granted, that was in large part a result of the conversation. But that wasn't the point. He needed to refocus. He could worry about talking to Tony later.

Steve stretched his shoulders, loosening the tension that had accumulated in his muscles during the flight, and stood, setting his feet shoulder width apart and grabbing a hold of the wrist strap bolted to the ceiling as he watched Clint smoothly bring the Quinjet in for a landing in a convenient clearing.

"Your captain thanks you for flying SHIELD airlines," Clint quipped, setting the craft down as lightly as a falling feather and readying his bow, "please remember to take your belongings and prepare to kick ass."

Natasha quirked an eyebrow at him in subtle criticism, only to have it ignored. Under a minute later, they climbed out into the rapidly cooling evening air. The Quinjet was secured and camouflaged as best they could with only a low-tech netting nearly as quickly. They'd decided against using the 'jet's active defenses; there was a chance those could give them away to the group they were investigating if anyone with the correct kind of scanning technology was keeping watch.

It wouldn't fool anyone who walked up to it, but the 'jet ought to be safe enough from all but the most avid eyes in the sky. Steve nodded. "Right. Positions," he unhooked his shield from its harness and slotted it into place on his arm, doing his best to mentally prepare himself to keep watch. "We'll reconvene as planned for a meal in six hours or whenever your scouting run is finished. Comms silence once you leave this clearing unless you have something to report."

Natasha nodded, and quietly faded into the trees without a word. Clint gave him a somewhat mocking half salute and a wave as he did the same.

The next six hours or so would be tedious, but he knew better than to let his mind wander.

A glance around the clearing revealed nothing but a ring of intermixed evergreen and maple trees. A few birds chirped sleepily, bedding down for the evening.

Every so often the trees would creak in the light wind, and the light was dying slowly, now. It had been just under an hour since the two agents had left the clearing.

"Widow is in," Clint's voice murmured over the comm line before going silent again.

"Copy." Steve wished he could see what was going on. What had they found? Hell, _had_ they found anything?

The sun went down entirely and the already chill air cooled significantly while he waited for another check-in and periodically reminded himself that no news was good news. That Clint would let him know if something went seriously wrong.

"Initial report," Clint spoke softly two and a half hours later, "affiliation and motives unclear. Widow is extracting herself. Rendezvous in an hour."

The pair of SHIELD agents appeared silently out of the trees fifty minutes later, preceded only by a flicker in Steve's peripheral vision. Rather than risk laying a campfire to cook over, they retreated into the 'jet and set to heating up three of the MREs it had come stocked with.

They'd arrived something like five hours ago and the flight itself had been another five. It had made for a very long tiring day, all in all, for all that it felt like they hadn't done much. Eventually, his food in his hands and seated on the floor of the 'jet facing the two assassins, Steve broke the comfortable silence. "What did you find?"

Natasha's expression didn't change, but Steve got the impression of a disgusted grimace. "Not much. The compound is mostly underground, but that seems to be primarily for the purposes of keeping their heating bill down. The place is small, not very well hidden, underequipped, and what equipment they do have is low quality. It looks like it was an abandoned nuclear bunker at one point, but whoever took it over didn't bother to clean it up. Everything in there is rundown, dates back to the 1970s, or broken. There are only two labs, and those have minimal protection. The scientists are as low-rent as the men pretending to be standing guard. The projects they're working on are all either mundane or derivative, and only barely deserve to be called 'research'. One weapons development project that is based on pre-existing technology and so new it might as well not have started yet. Two projects that appear designed to reverse engineer other types of weaponry: a Stark guidance system and a Hammer rocket. No sign of whatever it is they're working on that caused the flare of energy SHIELD detected. It's possible that whatever it was has already been moved. And the rumors of trafficking seem to be unfounded."

"They didn't notice Widow's appearance in their base," Clint added, "despite being essentially a skeleton crew, so they're either totally oblivious or they just don't give a shit. She wasn't even being overly sneaky. Just subtle. And they don't seem to have any sort of perimeter guard, either. I didn't find any signs of a guard rotation or even just IR cameras."

Natasha shrugged. "It's possible that they had some kind of silent alarm system, but the few non-scientists inside didn't react at all."

Steve considered the information. Something about the situation felt off, beyond the obvious lack of reaction to their presence. "We'll rest here tonight and see whether anything changes come morning. We'll keep watch on the 'jet and the base in shifts until daybreak, unless they show signs of wanting to take some kind of action. Clint, you get first watch. I'll take second."

Clint and Natasha nodded, slightly out of sync with one another, then exchanged a glance.

"Bets that we make it through the night undisturbed?" Clint asked her.

"I don't take rigged bets," was her reply.

Steve swallowed back a sigh. The depressing thing about it was that they were probably right.

Thankfully, he didn't need a lot of sleep to keep alert.

\--------------------


	2. Chapter 2

The conference hall was noisy in a muffled kind of way. Tony wanted to make a face; the acoustics of the room were absolutely terrible. The murmur of the assembled crowd was somehow simultaneously loud but indistinct, thanks to the materials they'd used for the walls and the drop ceiling. And to make up for it, the conference organisers had simply put a mic on the podium and speakers everywhere, essentially compensating for the way the room swallowed sound with more volume.

Or, rather, attempting to. The result was horrible and disorienting and only made the effect worse.

Seriously. He could have designed a better venue in his sleep. At age seven. And it would probably have been a lot cheaper to build than this ... monstrosity. Even if it _was_ located in downtown Boston[1]. That might as well have been its only redeeming feature, though. Even the colors of the walls and carpets were hideous.

A not-so-gentle elbow to his ribs jolted him out of his thoughts. "Stop scowling," Pepper hissed at him through the polite smile she used for public appearances like this.

"Pep--"

"I'm serious, Tony."

He turned to face her and blocked both their expressions from view as best he could, keeping his voice low. "This room is the worst venue I think I've ever seen."

"Ignore it and give your speech, or we _will_ have words. You promised me you wouldn't bail on this."

"I-- oof!" The moment he tried to protest, Pepper half turned and her elbow subtly dug into his diaphragm. Not enough to hurt, by any means, but enough to make her point.

Pepper turned back the rest of the way to face the rest of the room and the same elbow made contact again, this time with his side. A set of cue cards was pushed into his pocket -- not his hands, he hated being handed things -- and Pepper turned her polite smile on him, albeit slightly more genuinely. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

"Fine, fine!" Tony couldn't keep back the slightly irritated huff, but he returned the smile. "That will be all, Ms. Potts."

The speech itself was something he tuned out of even as he climbed the stairs to take the stage. He could do this shit in his sleep and it was boring. He didn't bother with the cue cards, left them in his pocket, just because he knew it would irritate Pepper.

In the end, it felt like about thirty seconds had passed while he spoke as enthusiastically as he could fake about whatever bullshit topic the conference organisers had demanded, but he was done and the audience was politely applauding. Well, except for that one group in the back corner obviously made up of college students that was whistling and cheering like they were at a football game. Hell, one of them had even painted his face with what Tony was fairly sure he recognised as BU school colors as though he were going to a tailgate party, which was hilarious. Tony gave them a grin and added a comment about training up the next generation properly, which only encouraged them.

They were still laughing to each other as he left the stage, half jogging down the three steps off to the left of the podium.

Pepper took him by the elbow and steered him out of the room the moment he was within reach, her expression disapproving if you knew where to look. Anyone who didn't know her well wouldn't even have noticed. Perversely, that only amused Tony more. Once they were out of range of the occupants of the room and their cameras, he pulled his arm free. He stripped off his suit jacket. It was far too warm out here to wear it, which meant that either the building's heating was working overtime for some reason, or the sheer number of bodies in the venue was driving up the temperature.

Pepper stopped and turned to face him, subtly positioning herself between him and whatever it was she thought he was after. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To find something interesting to do. Come on, Pepper, I did the stupid speech."

"You did. But you're not off the hook yet. You still have to do the expo demo. Which is in an hour. _Then_ you can find something interesting. Now, we are going to find some coffee and you are going to pass the time by--"

"Hold it right there!" A voice neither of them recognised interrupted her mid-sentence, and they both turned to give the man a disgusted look, stopping short when they took in his appearance.

A red bandanna obscured the lower half of his face and a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses hid his eyes. But, most importantly, he was holding a gun on Pepper.

"That's it," he added, smugly when they didn't make a move to try to run. Five more similarly masked men appeared out of the crowd, brandishing their own weapons and taking up positions in a ring around Tony and Pepper.

The scene was starting to make waves, now, as the bystanders began taking note of what was going on.

"You're not going to get away with this, you know," Tony told him. "There are far too many people in here with camera phones."

"Oh, but we are. You and your lovely CEO are coming with us, Mr. Stark, and the moment either of you tries to put up a fight, we start firing into the crowd. Now. Hand over your cell phones."

_Fucking hell._

One of the goons stepped up to take their phones, and took Tony's jacket in the process.

Next time he went anywhere he was ignoring any protests Pepper made and taking the suitcase armour with him. She'd made him leave it with Happy and the car, and giving in had clearly been a mistake on his part. Not that either of them had expected anyone to be dumb enough to abduct them in full view of a crowd of about fifty people and growing. He caught Pepper's eyes, and got a resigned nod in return. At least she had the grace to admit he had been right, this time. For fuck's sake. This was ridiculous.

Without another word exchanged, the goons hustled them out the door and to the roof, where they had a 'chopper waiting. One of the goons hung back to keep a wary eye -- and gun -- on the crowd watching that was closely now, while the rest of them kept their weapons trained mostly on Pepper. As though they knew Tony wasn't willing to risk her.

And the worst part of it was that they were right; without his suit, he wasn't. Couldn't be sure he could shield her from the bullets. Couldn't be sure he could shield _himself_ from the bullets. Something he knew would frighten and distress Pepper almost more than the goons threats to fire at her, if he attempted anything.

He suppressed an irritated huff, not wanting to draw attention to the direction of his thoughts.

This had to be the lamest kidnapping he'd ever been subjected to, for that matter. The goons decided they hadn't gone far enough with the bandannas and the guns; they also went as far as to fucking make him and Pepper _take the stairs_ to get to the roof. Why they wanted to go up, he wasn't sure yet, but getting to the roof had meant they'd had to climb six flights, and Pepper had almost broken the heel off one of her shoes -- and her ankle -- in the process.

When the goon at the head of the line kicked open the roof access, Tony wanted to groan. A 'chopper? Really? They picked a damn _'chopper_ for their getaway vehicle? Of all the impractical ideas--

The sound of police sirens was just barely audible in the distance when they shoved Tony through the roof access door, making him stumble slightly, and hustled him into the chopper, the help they offered still too far away to be useful. And he couldn't count on event security, either, it seemed, judging by the lack of uniformed people storming the stairwell or lying in wait on the roof. These morons had done one thing right: they'd moved really quickly from kidnapping to escape, and had their transport ready and waiting.

One of the goons had the balls to offer Pepper a hand into the chopper after him, the out-of-place gesture of polite chivalry getting the rest of the goons to laugh amongst themselves. She'd ignored the goon entirely and climbed in without assistance. Tony caught Pepper's eyes carefully, watching her as the 'chopper started and trying to wordlessly ask if she had the screamers on, not sure if looking at her feet would draw attention to them both.

He'd had an idea one night, nearly through his second large glass of scotch and correspondingly buzzed, that, even if he and Pepper had rather reluctantly agreed not to date after the Mandarin mess, she should have a way to call for help, and on a whim decided it should be something she had on her pretty much at all times that would activate it -- her heels. She'd laughed at him for a week that time, but he was pretty sure she had kept the little buttons and occasionally wore them. They looked a bit like a cross between a pushpin and a cufflink, and were meant to be pushed into the join between the shoe and the heel, where a pinhole would be pretty much invisible, and the device itself would look like just another bit of decoration. They were magnetic and had to come into contact in a specific pattern for the alert to go out to JARVIS that assistance was called for.

Pepper didn't do more than duck her head and smile slightly.

Tony had to hide a smirk of his own. They'd have to wait until the goons were paying a little less attention to use that particular secret weapon, but at least they _had_ it. Of course, when he'd designed them, he'd expected that he would be the one responding to the call, but he was sure he could count on JARVIS to get help. Especially once this fiasco hit the news -- assuming it hadn't already. With that many people around them wielding StarkPhones, there was a good chance Boston police and the news knew what was happening even without help. And if the internet knew, JARVIS would find out pretty quickly.

The way the pilot had the engine whining in protest, as he revved it harder than it was meant to go before it was properly warmed up, made Tony wince internally for the mechanism and hope they hadn't abused the thing so much that it wasn't properly flight worthy.

That would really be one of the worst possible ways to go that he could imagine. Killed in a helicopter crash by incompetent goons that couldn't maintain their equipment.

Unfortunately (or maybe it was fortunately?) the idiots managed to get the 'chopper into the air before the police hit the scene, though Tony swore he could hear the sirens over the thud of the 'chopper blades, now.

He almost didn't notice that they were lifting gently up off the building's roof, the 'chopper surprisingly skillfully handled, until five event security officers -- all of them clearly police officers assigned to the conference -- burst out through a nearby roof access just in time to watch the 'chopper take off for the city limits, their guns drawn. One of them was tempted to fire, that much was clear from his posture, but he hesitated too long, and then the 'chopper was drawing quickly out of range.

Tony couldn't decide whether he wanted to laugh or bash his head against the window.

Maybe both.

Backup was still too far from the convention centre to be effective, and the average response time for police helicopters was on the order of five minutes, in most of the major US cities. It was fast, but that would still give them a substantial head start, the way their pilot was flying. He was nearly redlining it, going by the way the engines were audibly protesting and the terrain was sliding by below them more quickly than was generally allowed for helicopter traffic. At this rate they'd be outside of Boston PD's jurisdiction long before anyone could scramble after them.

Hopefully the State Police would be able to track them on Logan Airport's radar long enough to get a bead on where they were going and issue an alert to anyone relevant.

When no one showed up to intercept them after the first half hour, though, Tony started to lose hope of an immediate rescue. He and Pepper might just have to find a way out of this one themselves.

The 'chopper landed a long hour and a half later, on an ancient and obviously long abandoned private airfield somewhere in the southern Catskill Mountains, and Tony was entirely unsurprised that they were hustled out of their ride and into a waiting Learjet[2] that was clearly already fueled and idling near the miserable excuse for a runway. As he and Pepper were pushed down into seats and secured to the armrests with handcuffs, the goons quickly and sloppily cleared the plane in preparation for takeoff. The moment the doors had closed behind the last goon, the small aircraft was taxiing jerkily over the obviously old and ill maintained airfield. From the short glimpse he'd gotten, it might as well have been an unused logging road, just graded a little better and paved several decades ago. He suspected they were lucky there were no potholes given the way winter tended to go, here. As the pilot positioned the plane at the end of the runway then almost immediately opened the throttle for take-off, there was a loud thud and a yelp from the back of the jet that made someone else snicker. Tony suspected some jackoff had gotten caught off guard in the tiny cabin bathroom. The jet veered left and right seemingly randomly as it picked up speed, jolting him and Pepper against their seats hard every time.

He could tell Pepper wanted to roll her eyes. The whole situation was just ridiculous. Not just the almost slapstick quality of the goons, who seemed to be doing this for the first time in their lives. Usually the demands came almost immediately. 'Do this or the lady gets it' was a favourite.

Sometimes he wondered if there was an Evil Henchman's Guide out there somewhere.

But then again, if there was, clearly these goons hadn't read it, so it didn't matter.

As he finished the thought, the jet finally made it into the air with a last lurch that made his stomach want to drop down into his foot.

 _Thank fuck._ At least the jet wasn't wrapped around a tree or who knew what else.

Half an hour passed in relative silence. The goons snickered amongst themselves occasionally from the back of the cabin.

"Yeah, Boss, we're on our way," one of the goons said from the cockpit, yelling into his mic loudly enough that his voice carried over the engine noise and all the way back into the cabin. Clearly he had no idea how cockpit mics worked. Hopefully it wasn't the pilot. That would be a bad sign.

"Yeah," he continued, voice slightly lower, "we're just over Binghamton. Shouldn't be more than five hours."

That was... Shit. Five hours was enough time to put them all the way across the continent, all the way to the West Coast, in a craft like this. Or, worse, international. All of Central and part of South America were within range, at that point.

Pepper caught his eye. He tried not to let anything show in his expression, when she pointedly looked at the cuffs of her blouse. The screamers. She was using them as cufflinks. Why the fuck. That was. They weren't meant for that. And now they were potentially worse than useless. Somehow, amazingly, she still had both, but with the way her hands were separately cuffed to the armrests of her seat, she couldn't use them.

That, naturally, was when the situation took another turn. Because of course it did.

One of the goons in the cockpit emerged, his sunglasses slightly askew, and called out. "Jenkins! Take over."

"Right," another of the goons replied, hurrying forward and disappearing from sight.

Sauntering over as he resettled his sunglasses and easily compensating for a dip in the floor underfoot as the pilot adjusted course, the first goon stopped in front of Tony. For lack of a name, Tony decided to refer to him as Head Goon. Had a nice ring to it.

"Well, Mr. Stark," Head Goon said, and Tony mentally painted in a subtle smirk in his voice to compensate for the bandanna still covering the man's mouth, "no doubt you're set to wonderin' what we want."

Cautiously, Tony nodded. "You could say that."

Something in Head Goon's bearing hinted at amusement, this time. "Ain't gonna ask?"

"Well," Tony shrugged, "I was pretty sure you'd tell me. But if not, that's not my problem."

"Now, see, Mr. Stark, I happen to be in charge of this here flight," came the calm reply, "so if I were to, say, recommend opening the cabin door and letting you dangle out of it for an hour or so by your fingertips, it would happen."

Tony only barely resisted rolling his eyes at the melodrama. Next they'd be threatening to tie him to a set of railroad tracks. "Fine, fine. What do you want?"

"Oh," Head Goon grinned, "that's simple. _We_ want nothing. The man what's hired us? _Him's_ as you oughta be worried about."

"And who would that be?"

"That, Mr. Stark, is for us to know and you to find out."

Without another word, he stood and turned, stepping back into the cockpit and kicking Jenkins back out. Or so Tony assumed. All the goons looked more or less identical, aside from their builds.

Tony settled back into his seat silently, his thoughts racing. Who the hell was after him this time? He'd just recently dealt AIM a black eye, with the way he and Rhodey'd taken out their Extremis enhanced goons and saved the President, and all indications were that AIM was lying low for the moment. They hadn't even been making many black market purchases, occupied as they were with licking their wounds. He and JARVIS had been keeping an eye on them.

The same was likely true of the Ten Rings, with the way he periodically went after them to clean out their weapons depots. Their involvement was vaguely possible if they had some North American cells buried deep under the radar. The problem with that theory, though, was that even if the Mandarin's other goon squads were intact and in the area, they wouldn't be nearly this incompetent. Nor would they be likely to have American accents. That still left a lot of options, though. A number of his industry competitors were of the type inclined toward this kind of stunt, but none of them would be this stupid. They'd know the value of leaving as few witnesses as possible.

Well, with one notable exception. But Hammer was locked away, deep in the bowels of some secure government facility. Or whatever they wanted to call it this week.

Shaking his head to clear it, Tony gave up the guessing game. He wasn't going to get anywhere that way without something solid to base his conjectures on.

Unfortunately, he wasn't getting free of his seat anytime soon, either. He could have picked the cuffs if his hands had been cuffed together, but he couldn't do it one-handed. He'd gotten bored one day, and taught himself how to escape standard cuffs but since he hadn't expected to ever actually need the knowledge, he hadn't bothered to take it any farther. And anyways, even if he had wanted to attempt to pick them one-handed, he had no tools to do it with. And even if he did get free, there was nowhere to go. He was outnumbered badly enough that they had a significant advantage, not only in numbers but in weapons, and Pepper would be defenseless. For that matter, even if he did manage to take out all of these goons, without a gun, he'd still have to contend with those in the cockpit, and trying to fight in such cramped quarters as an aisle between plane seats was probably not a good idea.

A glance out the cabin windows didn't reveal much, either. Seated in the center of the plane as they were, he couldn't see anything but the aircraft's wings and a sliver of blue sky.

"Roger that," Head Goon yelled into the cockpit mic, "switching to heading 297 degrees."

Well. That answered part of his question. Pepper raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged back. The heading itself didn't tell him much, not when that could change on a moment's notice, but if they maintained that heading for any length of time, that flightpath would put them in Canada somewhere.

The hours passed slowly after that. Nothing happened for the remainder of the flight, other than occasional patrols of the aisle of the plane by the goons stationed in the cabin. Not one of them deigned to talk to him, or Pepper.

Which was probably for the best, considering how bored he was. Tony swallowed back a grimace. He'd been forcing himself not to mutter calculations under his breath for the last two hours. It was simultaneously a welcome distraction that he wanted, no _needed_ , to keep from going up the walls, and a terrible idea to say any of it out loud. He was trying to keep track of their estimated airspeed based on the whine of the turbine engines, their heading -- including all of the little dips and adjustments, the length of time they'd been flying, in an attempt to work out where they were.

If his math was right -- and it always was, but assumptions had been the downfall of many a mathematical model -- they were in Northern Canada somewhere. Tony found himself wishing he had access to JARVIS; geography wasn't his best subject. Sure, he knew all the countries and their capitals, but the little details like provinces or other major cities? He generally had more important things to keep track of, and JARVIS to help him keep track of such things.

Then, without warning, the floor of the jet dipped almost alarmingly underfoot before steadying at a nearly thirty degree angle as the craft began a sudden rapid descent, pushing the limits of the jet's fuselage. Tony could feel the vibrations resonating through the entire superstructure, and could only hope like hell that the pilot knew what the fuck he was doing. Pepper let out a startled noise that could have qualified as a squeak, and gripped the armrests of her seat tightly. If he could have, he would have reached over and taken her hand. To him, this was nothing, but Pepper was used to flying commercial, or on the company jet.

Judging by the way his ears popped after less than thirty seconds, the pilot had opted for a sharp dive that would put them under the minimum altitude where they could be easily seen on radar. A very steep and very aggressive turn to the left that put the jet at a bank angle of almost 70 degrees to the horizontal and threw everyone on board against the nearest armrest or cabin wall had Tony revising his estimation of the pilot[3]. This guy was pretty likely ex-military; very few people besides professional air racers or fighter pilots -- or Iron Man himself -- could pull off a maneuver like that. Much less when flying a civilian aircraft.

One of the goons at the back of the cabin started whining about bruises. Tony couldn't stop from rolling his eyes.

Another steep descent distracted him from his thoughts, and he realised there would probably not be a landing strip on this end of the flight. Not even an ancient and abused one like they'd used in New York. "Brace yourself, Pep," he muttered, voice as low as he could make it and still be heard, "it's gonna be a rough landing."

Sure, there was probably a large open field waiting for them, but that kind of terrain didn't make for a smooth landing surface, and if they hit a big enough bump or hole, the jet could easily go tumbling at these speeds. Hell, if the ground was uneven enough they might not be able to use the brakes and be forced to let the jet coast to a stop, or even risk losing the landing gear entirely.

It felt like seconds later that the ground came up to meet them, though it was probably far longer. The pilot picked his way almost delicately through several of the taller treetops surrounding the open field, nicking a couple and breaking branches as he went, the impacts shaking the plane's entire fuselage. Pepper made a panicked sound at each one. Tony mostly found himself hoping no substantial debris hit the turbine engines. The landing itself was somewhere between tooth-rattling and a hard bounce. It felt to Tony like they touched ground at least five times, skimming through the field at speed like a rock skipping over water, until they hit a weirdly level area and the pilot managed to stop the jet.

Whoever had taken them obviously had a prepared landing strip out in the middle of nowhere. A legitimately leveled and graded but unpaved strip of meadow a half mile long. What the fuck. This kept getting weirder.

He didn't have time to analyse the situation further. Two of the goons stationed in the cabin threw on parkas and hurried over, and undid their cuffs. They 'helped' Tony and Pepper out of their seats without offering them any kind of coat or jacket, recuffed their hands at the smalls of their backs, and frog marched them to the door in near silence. The only words used were 'get up' and 'move'.

The pair of goons watching him hadn't budged an inch from their positions on either side of him, nor had Pepper's. They did pause just outside the plane, and Tony took the chance to look around the area. There was no sign of habitation at the moment, other than the already fading tracks of their plane in the meadow, and a few bootprints in the mud. And it was _cold_ , he noted, disgusted, taking in the frost on the ground. At least it wasn't knee-deep snow.

That answered the question of where they were. Well, sort of. They were obviously somewhere above the US-Canadian border, or maybe even near the Arctic Circle. Wherever they were, though, the weather conditions at the cusp of spring obviously weren't known for their balmy nature, going by current conditions. The light wind cut through the parts of his suit that he was still wearing like it wasn't even there, and Pepper was probably almost frozen already in her skirt suit and nylons.

They were escorted, for lack of a better term, a short distance from the makeshift airfield. Tony heard the Learjet take off again as they walked, presumably to go to the nearest actual airport for refueling or possibly even storage in a hangar. About a quarter mile later, after stumbling over hidden tree roots and having low branches whip at their faces, feeling frozen to the bone, he and Pepper were led up to a door set into the side of a low hill. There was nothing else to be seen, other than a concrete doorframe with a simple number pad that looked as though it had been pried out of a payphone and reused.

His toes felt like they had frozen to the insides of his now-soaked leather shoes and his pants were wet up to the ankles. Tony, working his hands to keep them from stiffening up totally in the cold air, couldn't help his derisive snort. It got him a kick to his ankle that staggered him, and then they were led into an underground base that Tony decided qualified as bunker chic. There were concrete walls everywhere, accompanied by bare wires in some cases, and there were any number of trip hazards: power cables, empty boxes, unopened boxes, empty pallets... all the shit JARVIS was always nagging him about when he went on building sprees and then convincing DUM-E or U to dispose of when Tony forgot to for the sixth or seventh time. It was also underground for no apparent reason other than to keep from being overly obvious on satellite scans. As they 'walked', he made note that there were a few labs he couldn't see into, and some bathrooms so run down and dilapidated that they didn't seem to have doors. 

All the 'scientists' on base were, somewhat stereotypically, male and wore stained lab coats with pocket protectors. None of them looked like they had the first idea what they were doing. One walked by with the slide and spring of a disassembled handgun shoved in his breast pocket and the (loaded) body of a different gun in his hands.

Tony had to work to suppress a wince. Clearly whoever funded these dumbasses had never heard of equal opportunity hiring practices. Or OSHA regulations, for that matter.

Hell, for that matter, whoever was in charge of this clusterfuck was probably a man. He couldn't imagine any of his female opponents putting up with this kind of crap, even in such an obviously illegal operation. Even Madame Masque had better taste in her minions.

Tony refocused his attention when the goons 'leading' them stopped in front of a narrow metal door without a window. He couldn't stop himself from snarking at them, this time. "Don't tell me. We step through this door and we'll be in the Hilton Marriott."

Pepper gave him a look that hovered somewhere between exasperated and relieved, wanting him to stop antagonising their captors, no doubt.

His goon shrugged, opening the door and shoving him through. "Call it what you want, Stark. We'll be back later."

Tony glanced around. It had obviously once been a reasonably sized supply closet. It still had the shelves along three of its walls, but the lightbulb had been removed -- probably for use in one of the labs, Tony suspected. "What? Not even a mini fridge?"

The comment got him a solid punch, meant for his face, that he managed to catch on his shoulder.

Pepper was allowed to step through under her own power when she didn't comment on the accommodations. 

When the door closed behind her, they were left in a pitch dark room, but for the line of dim light that seeped in almost sluggishly through the crack under the door.

"Well, fuck." Tony tried unsuccessfully to get his hands free. "Got a pocket knife handy, Ms. Potts?"

She huffed, caught somewhere between amusement and irritation. "In what pocket? You know women's clothing comes with exactly none of them. They took my purse." Pepper's clothes rustled quietly as she sank down to her knees, then sat gingerly on the floor.

"Point. I guess we're stuck for now." He let his tone drop down into the slightly lower register he liked to use when he hinted at things.

"Tony, either say what you mean or don't bother," came the strained reply.

Right. Pepper wasn't as used to this kind of crap. "They didn't bother to search either of us. Just took our phones."

He could see her head come up in the dim light, a slightly less dark shadow in light grey. Sometimes he missed the glow of the arc reactor, even if it had made for a very obvious target; it was pretty bright and could light up a dark room through a thin shirt. "What are you getting at?" she asked him, her voice lingering on the last few syllables like she was throttling down hope.

"Get your hands in front of you, then come over here."

Gingerly, she did, using the leverage of her planted feet and her shoulders against the wall to lift herself up far enough that she could shift her cuffed hands from the small of her back to under her knees. From there it was a matter of lowering herself down and pulling her feet up as far as she could, to plant them on the floor right next to her butt and inside the circle of her arms.

Carefully, she stood, moving slowly so that she could avoid hitting her head on any of the shelves, then straightened. "Now what?"

"Now you use those screamers I built into the things you're misusing as cufflinks, then come over here."

\------

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Massachusetts+Convention+Center+Authority/@42.345506,-71.04644,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x2c611a8552d64981 Click here to return to text.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learjet Click here to return to text.

[3] http://flighttraining.aopa.org/students/presolo/skills/basicmaneuvers.html Steep turns Click here to return to text.


	3. Chapter 3

Their comms all went off at about 06:30 that morning. Steve had to fumble slightly with his, his hands sleep-clumsy. When he was awake enough to focus and press the button to activate his comm, the last one to do so, Coulson's calm voice came through. "We have a situation. You need to get back to New York on the double. The recon mission can wait."

"What's happened, sir?" Clint inquired.

"Turn on the news," came the reply, their handler's voice sounding slightly strained this time. It surprised Steve into full awareness; Coulson was about as calm and level-headed as it was possible to be and even better at faking it. For _him_ to sound anything other than calm required... well, a disaster. Even as the Helicarrier had fallen out of the sky, facing down a demi-god with a gun whose capabilities he hadn't even known, he'd sounded almost as calm over the comms as he did standing on solid ground.

"Shit. Something big, then."

"Stark's been taken," Natasha interjected, holding up her Starkphone so that they could see the headlines, her tone as level as always. A short video clip of the kidnapping itself was playing, probably shot on a cellphone, judging by the shakiness. It was difficult to see much in the way of detail, but the circle of men with guns was obvious. "Potts was with him, and they took her, too." She paused for a long moment as the video played, the tinny audio underscoring her point. _\-- we are. You and your lovely CEO are coming with us, Mr. Stark, and the moment either of you tries to put up a fight, we start firing --_

Clint pinched the bridge of his nose as she cut off the video. Steve could only agree with the sentiment. "For fuck's sake," the marksman grumbled. "Okay. ETA is in approximately four and a half hours, sir. We'll contact you again once we're in secure comms range of HQ."

"Acknowledged. We should have more information by the time you get back here. Coulson out."

The trip home felt oddly short, compared to the trip out, but was thankfully entirely uneventful, the completely clear weather simultaneously mocking their tension with its calm and allowing Clint to push the 'jet to the limits of its specs -- and even a little beyond at times. None of them said a word for the duration. Steve so as not to disturb Clint, whose flying was on enough of a bleeding edge to make him wonder whether the 'jet could withstand the stress, Natasha so that she could concentrate on digging up a lead, tapping into SHIELD's systems from the air and electronically coordinating her efforts with Coulson's.

Surprisingly, she turned up nothing much, other than the news footage. It seemed to be an attack out of nowhere. Steve watched her work through Tony's long list of enemies, both personal and corporate, but all of those with enough power or money to attempt something like this were either accounted for at the time of the kidnapping or, in some cases, already in prison.

They got no further until they touched down in New York.

Coulson was waiting for them when they landed at HQ, standing just beyond the danger tape that still lingered after the Chitauri Invasion. He was talking almost before they'd finished disembarking, raising his voice just slightly to make himself heard as they approached. "The events you've seen on the news took place at 0830, New York local time."

"What do we know," Natasha interjected, a hint of annoyance in her tone. The emotion likely a direct consequence of the dead ends that had plagued her search for information. It took someone very good at hiding to evade her. Granted, it was possible that there simply _was_ nothing to find, but the probability of that was as near zero as made no difference.

"Not much." Coulson's expression showed his own irritation with the situation. He settled his hands at the small of his back as he turned to walk away from the 'jet and into HQ, trusting that his team would follow. "The kidnappers themselves don't show up in any of our facial recognition databases, and didn't refer to their organisation in any of the footage we've managed to track down."

"And their getaway vehicle?" Clint asked.

"A helicopter, rented under a pseudonym that leads nowhere. It's obviously a fabricated persona, but it was established years ago and never used, which means we have no way of tracing whoever created it electronically. IP address tracing is only effective if you know what address to trace and whether it's a permanent address. We don't, and any records have most likely long since been purged and overwritten with new information in the name of saving server memory. The only trail we have is already cold."

Clint snorted. "Really."

"Local law enforcement managed to trace the 'chopper out to the edge of Kingston, but lost the trail there, when it passed out of range of their radar and they could not secure access to Albany's radar facility in time."

Steve gave Coulson a sardonic look. "So now what?"

"I have the analysts tracing the persona under which the helicopter was rented. We may yet get a hit, if whoever created it used it for anything else recent. SHIELD is also searching for the vehicle using the satellites we have access to, but it will take time."

"We may not _have_ time," Steve replied, a tension born of worry settling in his shoulders and neck. "The unknown variables in play make it imperative that we move _now_. We've already lost the upper hand."

Clint paused. "What about Stark's pet AI?"

Coulson shrugged. "SHIELD has no control over it or access to it; Stark made sure of that. He also did his best to give it total access to SHIELD's systems."

Natasha hummed thoughtfully. "And Stark didn't call his armour to him?"

"We don't have confirmation, but suspect he was not wearing his locator bracelets at the conference they were attending," Coulson admitted.

"So, we don't know who took him, why, or where," Steve summarised, "and all we can do is wait."

Clint nodded. "Pretty much."

Coulson added, "I'm recommending you three go to Stark Tower once the Quinjet has been refueled. Agent Romanov, it might be worth finding out if any of your contacts within Stark Industries have any additional information. Agent Barton, Captain, keep an ear on your comms. As is usually the case, Stark's helipad is currently the best launch point in the Tri-State area, based on traffic levels."

Steve had to resist the desire to bury his face in his hands again. That had been happening a lot more in the past 24 hours than he was used to. Another waiting game. He hated these. Somehow, though, this time felt more agonising than the last. Steve didn't let himself examine that notion any further. He needed to keep his head in the game, and the level of emotion attached to the thought was... too much.

Under fifteen minutes later, he found himself staring out the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows of Tony's penthouse. JARVIS had been gracious and let them in, for all that they normally did not venture here. Steve didn't like to intrude when he still wasn't really even on a first name basis with the man except in his thoughts, and the others simply weren't in the Tower often.

The room he'd ended up in was the restored open livingroom and bar that had gotten destroyed during the Chitauri Invasion. The enormous windows made it feel light and airy but oddly empty. It didn't feel lived in, though, which was strange to Steve. Tony's primary residence was here, now that the team was an established thing and not a one-time fling, as he'd put it the first time the team had reconvened. So why did the place feel like a hotel lobby?

For that matter, why did he care?

His priority ought to be getting Tony back, Steve chided himself, not trying to figure the man out.

He felt too on edge to sit down, but watching the city below was soothing in an oddly hypnotic way. He needed something to _do_. Preferably something productive. "JARVIS?"

"Yes, Captain?"

Knowing Tony, the AI had more than likely heard about the events of the kidnapping before the team had. But Steve hadn't thought to ask it any questions. "Is there any new information available?"

"On which topic, Captain? I have access to any news feed you care to name."

That was just deliberately obtuse. "Now, I know you know better than that, JARVIS. I meant the kidnapping."

"Unfortunately, I do not have any more information than you yourself do, Captain. My ability to track the vehicles used is limited by the same restrictions as those tying the hands of local law enforcement and SHIELD. Mr. Stark felt it would be counter-productive to make my presence so obvious as that, in addition to drawing more attention than it would be worth."

Which made sense, damn it.

One of the few decisions of Tony's he had to agree with fully. If the general populace were to become aware of the AI, they would likely not react well. He himself had needed some time to get used to the idea that there was a computer playing assistant to Tony in his workshop that was nearly as intelligent as its creator. And he was used to dealing with bizarre technology. The general populace was not nearly ready for that kind of technology, he knew. For that matter, Steve knew, they were used to stories about angry murderous AIs, and likely to assume JARVIS was one of their number. Nor, he had to acknowledge, would the government or Tony's competitors react well to the AI. He'd heard about the numerous attempts -- both by the armed forces and Congress -- to take the armour away from its inventor. They would do the same -- if not worse -- with JARVIS.

"He's probably right," Steve admitted out loud on a sigh, "but it makes this a lot more complicated."

"Likely an accurate assessment," the AI agreed. "However, there are other avenues we could--"

Steve looked up toward the camera and speaker set inconspicuously in a corner of the large room. "We could what, JARVIS?"

"A moment, Captain."

Puzzled, but curious as to what had the AI so distracted, Steve forced himself to wait patiently. They'd only been in the Tower for a half hour.

A long minute later, the AI spoke up again. "The signal is weak, but the tracker Mr. Stark designed for Ms. Potts has activated."

"Tracker?" Steve frowned. Why the hell did no one on the team but JARVIS know about this? "Where is it now?"

"The 'No Place Like Home' protocol is now active," JARVIS replied, dodging the question surprisingly adroitly, "and Agents Barton and Romanov have been requested to join you, Captain."

"JARVIS," Steve tried to insist, " _where is the tracker located?_ "

"Agents Barton and Romanov will be here shortly."

Steve couldn't help scowling at the camera he knew was hidden in a corner of the room. Trust Tony to develop an AI that was as good as he was at avoiding questions. Might as well wait for the others to join him. He'd only have to relay the information once they did, otherwise. Assuming he managed to get JARVIS to talk, in the first place.

And anyway, something told him that would only annoy JARVIS -- it always caught him off guard that the AI acted so surprisingly human in the way his tone shifted through recognisable emotional ranges -- and would likely take longer to accomplish than actually waiting for Clint and Natasha to show up.

Thankfully, JARVIS hadn't been simply putting him off; the elevator doors opened to reveal the two SHIELD agents moments later. Steve wasn't sure what he'd have done, had such been the case, but he did know it sure as hell would have left both him and JARVIS in a very bad mood.

"Cap," Clint gave him a curious look even as he walked over with his customary swagger, Natasha following him silently. When they paused facing Steve, he added, "what's going on? JARVIS said you were asking for us."

Before Steve could reply, a holographic map popped open in front of the three of them. "Ms. Potts' tracker went active just minutes ago, near the site you were investigating on SHIELD's behalf. It seems likely that the two are related."

Steve couldn't stop himself from bristling a bit, offended by the implications of that statement. "If you're saying that we triggered something that caused them to take Stark, you can--"

"Not at all, Captain," the AI cut him off. Steve fell silent, mostly out of stunned surprise. It wasn't often he was interrupted, much less by a computer.

Clint looked skeptically at the map before he reached out to touch it, doing something that magnified the area around the dot -- and the research base they'd been investigating. The little flashing beacon was located in what Steve would have estimated to be the northwest corner of the base. "JARVIS..." Clint murmured thoughtfully, rubbing at his forehead in thought, "it did kinda sound like you were saying that because we were scoping out the research base, someone took Stark and Ms. Potts."

The AI stayed silent.

Steve could see that Natasha was considering the scenario. "It's possible," she allowed. "But the timing would be very tight. It would be difficult to arrange that kind of kidnapping on such short notice. They would have had less than twelve hours. Based on what we've found so far, they had multiple getaway vehicles ready in pre-arranged locations, most of which were rented."

Clint nodded his agreement, continuing the thought for her. "Which takes more than twelve hours to arrange, and is only possible during business hours unless you own the rental company. More likely the snatch-and-grab was planned a while ago, and we just happened to stumble on the base at exactly the wrong time. But, either way, it's not a coincidence."

"The five largest rental companies in the Tri-State area were checked by local law enforcement when the trail went cold initially," JARVIS put in, even as a list appeared next to the map that was still displayed. "All of them came up clean."

Natasha was looking very intently at the list. "All of those names sound very familiar."

"That can wait until after we have them back," Clint asserted. "If it was done for money, we'd probably have gotten a ransom demand already. Stark can take care of himself. Well, more or less. But Ms. Potts is a civilian."

Steve was surprised to find himself internally disagreeing with that assessment of Tony's abilities, but kept it to himself. He knew better than to say something like that in front of JARVIS, and he'd already put his foot in his mouth once around the AI in the last ten minutes. Yes, Tony could take care of himself inside the armour, but without it? He was very vulnerable. And, actually, that brought up an interesting question. "That aside, how are we handling the issue of Stark's armour?"

Unsurprisingly, JARVIS was the one to jump on the question. "The suitcase armour was recovered by Mr. Hogan alongside the limousine, and is entirely self-contained. The range is far too much for the full armour's line-of-sight lock-on capabilities, and, as such, renders it useless. And Mr. Stark has yet to design armour with satellite guided lock-on capabilities. The full armour would also be far more difficult to carry into the base than the more compact model."

Steve nodded. That made sense. He felt better now that he could finally do something. "Where is it?"

"I will have it brought up. It is currently in the workshop, which is -- and will remain -- secured in Mr. Stark's absence."

Steve turned to Clint. "Warm up the 'jet?"

The marksman smirked. Leaving to follow orders, he tossed over his shoulder, "Nice of SHIELD to refuel her when we stopped at HQ. We should be set to go in ten to fifteen."

Natasha followed Clint without a word, apparently intuiting that Steve wanted to ask JARVIS a question whose answer the AI was likely to deem something not suitable for anyone associated with SHIELD to hear.

Once the SHIELD agents were both out of earshot, JARVIS added quietly, "Captain. Keep in mind that I will be unable to make use of the armour's interface until Mr. Stark is in the suit, as it is keyed to him and will not power on unless he is wearing it. Once you leave New York City proper, I will no longer be able to assist you directly until the armour is activated."

Steve raised a mildly sardonic eyebrow, looking directly into the camera in the corner of the room again. "Didn't Stark insert you into SHIELD during the Chitauri mess?"

"Most of those backdoors were removed in the months following the Invasion."

"But you still have access."

The AI was suspiciously silent. 

Steve suppressed an amused huff. _We can neither confirm nor deny, huh?_ Shaking his head once, slowly, he told JARVIS, "Just patch yourself into my comm, then, and if anything changes, let me know."

"I cannot promise anything, Captain. If SHIELD were to detect a hack--"

"I know."

The next short silence carried more than a hint of a sigh. "You are just as bad as Mr. Stark in some respects."

Oddly reminded of Bucky, Steve gave the camera in the corner a crooked salute as he pushed away the memories that dug up. He started gathering up the gear he'd taken off in the last forty-five minutes; he had a mission to run. "I know."

Minutes later, the suitcase armour was stowed carefully in a footlocker as the Quinjet rose back in the air, and Clint was radioing Coulson to let him know about the latest developments. Natasha took up the mic when he was through, and relayed the information about the rental companies to their handler, along with a request that they be investigated in more detail.

It was more than a little bit frustrating to know they were flying right back out to the same base full of incompetents. That their opponents were far more than the bumbling idiots they seemed.

If they had just stayed out there for a few hours...

But then, Steve made a face at himself as he stood in the back of the 'jet with his feet solidly planted to put back on his gear, hindsight was 20/20. If anyone else had snatched Tony -- or if they had taken him anywhere else -- he and his team would have been seriously out of position to do anything about it, had they stayed in the Canadian wilderness to wait it out.


	4. Chapter 4

Once she had her hands in front of her again, Pepper had briefly let herself slump back against the wall of the small room before standing and taking advantage of the screamers he'd built her. Tony nodded approvingly.

"And now?" Pepper looked surprisingly hopeful.

"And now we hope JARVIS can scramble the team or SHIELD. I designed those to route to the armour, rather than team comms, so unless JARVIS gets through to someone or can somehow get me a suit, we're on our own. We've got nothing on us that'll help us escape immediately. I've got no armour and no weapons. No defense -- for either of us. No tools, 'cause you emptied my pockets when we left the hotel," she shrugged, undaunted by his commentary, as he continued, "and neither of us has our cell phones or shoes good enough to walk any kind of distance in, even if we do manage to get out of this place, and we're sure as hell not dressed to go outside."

"Then we wait." Pepper sat back down, ignoring the grime on the floor -- which obviously hadn't been cleaned in at least a month. She was still favouring her right leg, Tony noted.

"You hurt?"

"Nothing major."

He raised an eyebrow at her. He knew avoidance when he heard it. Hell, he was a master. "Your ankle?"

"It aches. Has ever since we got out of that stairwell."

He considered the information for a moment. "Right. Come here. I know you've probably got a pen tucked away somewhere in that suit."

"A pen. _You_ want a _pen_."

"I know, I know. Rare occasions. Gimme." He attempted to make grabby hands at her, forgetting that his own hands were still cuffed behind his back, then gave up and fumbled his way somewhat clumsily to his feet.

His shoulder ached where he'd taken that punch, probably bruised pretty spectacularly, by the feel of it, when he straightened gingerly. Despite his care, he whacked the back of his head against a shelf and hissed.

"Tony?"

"I'm fine. Pen?" He could _feel_ the look of consternation she was wearing and smirked. "Come on, Potts, chop chop. We might not have a lot of time." Hard on the heels of his statement, footfalls started echoing down the hallway outside their makeshift cell. "Fuck, nevermind, keep it."

"Tony?"

"Later, Pepper. We're about to have company."

Head Goon opened the door and the dim light of the hallway flooded into the small room as Tony finished the sentence. "Well, well. It appears y'all anticipated having guests."

Tony turned to face him and met his eyes, faking calm as hard as he could. Trying to keep the attention on him rather than on Pepper. _Thank Thor these asshats are incompetent idiots._ "In a manner of speaking. I hope you'll excuse the state of this place. The housekeeper hasn't been by yet this year."

The quip got him a flicker of a half-smirk out of Head Goon, though the expression was almost as imperceptible as one of Coulson's. "You've got brass balls, Stark. I'll give ya that. But you ain't gonna get away that light." Head Goon made a curt gesture to the pair of goons standing at his shoulders, and they stepped around him and into the room, frog-marching Tony back out of the small space and into the hallway. "You and me, Stark? We're gonna have a little chat. Just the two of us. I don't wanna upset the little lady."

Tony caught Pepper's eyes for a moment, just before the door shut, and hoped he'd managed a reassuring expression. Whether he'd gotten through was an open question. Pepper's expression had been hovering between worry, outrage, and distilled fury. "You know," he tried, keeping his tone as bored as he could, "manhandling me like this isn't helping your case. Force doesn't work. I might have considered whatever it is you want if you'd just asked."

Head Goon chuckled, and with another abrupt gesture the minions were marching Tony down the hallway around a corner to the right, and into what looked like a truly shitty weapons lab. "It's cute, the way you think you can persuade me to let you go like that. If it were up to me, I might even do it. But the Bossman, well, he _wants_ an excuse to do this the hard way."

The door locked behind him, Head Goon watched impassively as his minions secured Tony to an improvised set of rings that had been hastily constructed out of a bedframe that had been turned to stand on its headboard (or, well, the pair of unevenly squared off posts where the headboard should have been) and bolted sloppily the wall behind it with a pair of obviously scavenged and mismatched angle brackets, a few lengths of steel chain that looked like they'd been lying around outdoors for a year or so, and some new-looking D-rings that Tony suspected had been bought at the local hardware store just for the occasion. It was weirdly reminiscent of the crap Killian had tried to pull on the Mandarin's behalf last year. Just... less well executed.

That was starting to be a theme, really.

Tony gave in to the inevitability of humouring Head Goon's apparent need for melodrama. "So what _does_ your employer want, assuming I cooperate?"

"Oh, that's simple." Head Goon leaned back with a satisfied smile. "He wants to have either the schematics to your repulsor technology, or a working sample to reverse engineer. Your choice."

Tony wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose. For fuck's sake. This again? Damned villains were always singing the same fucking song. Obie? Wanted his tech and his company. Vanko? Wanted his tech and his company, or his suffering if the aforementioned didn't work out. The Mandarin? Well, the details were to be determined, but it was looking like his agenda might well also be in the same vein, now that the Extremis virus had proven not to be terribly effective. And now the guy who'd hired these jokers.

In a lot of ways it was just as well that he'd had the arc reactor in his chest removed, really, or they might have tried to take that in an effort to make him talk, and reignited a lot of his nightmares.

"And if I decide not to cooperate?"

"Well, then we get to _persuade_ you. Any way we like."

Tony couldn't stop the scorn from showing on his face this time. "And when my team comes knocking on your door? When SHIELD does? What then?"

That did seem to give him pause for a second, but he rallied quickly. "Don't matter. Either we'll have what we want, or you'll be dead."

"Better work fast, then." Tony caught Head Goon's eyes challengingly. "I'm not known for being easily persuaded. And you can bet my team will tear you apart once they find this place. They may already have."

"Leroy! Jenkins, get in here![4]"

The minion from the jet peered into the room. "Yeah, boss?"

"Get Hendrix and what passes for a set of tools in this place. Stark would rather be persuaded than go down easy."

"Oh, I go down real easy," Tony smirked, unable to resist the jab, "you're just not my type."

That earned him a stunned expression followed by a punch to the face that might well have knocked him off his feet if he hadn't been cuffed to the upended bedframe, spread-eagled. As it was, he was staggered. Damn but Head Goon had a solid left hook. And he hadn't pulled the punch at all. Tony worked his jaw gingerly. The hit had landed squarely over his temple and down to the corner of his right eye. It didn't feel like anything was more than rattled, but it was probably going to be one hell of a shiner shortly. It felt hot and tender already. Ugh.

The two minions, Jenkins and Hendrix, apparently, reappeared in the doorway with a cart covered in what looked like mangled workshop tools. All manner of things that looked like they'd been chosen to inflict pain over as long a period of time as possible without actually killing him. Half a length of hydraulic hose, several rusty sawblades, and a couple of oddly bent pliers caught his eye before his attention was forcibly refocused on Head Goon.

"I'll be back in an hour. No permanent damage," was his only instruction to his minions.

This was gonna be a long hour.

\------

[4] https://youtu.be/hooKVstzbz0 This is probably what you think it is. Click here to return to text.


	5. Chapter 5

They had been in the air for just over two hours when the monotony of the flight was finally broken.

"Cap?"

"What is it?" Natasha's voice had held a hint of mild disgust. That was worrying.

"I know why those rental companies sounded familiar."

That could either be ominous or very promising. "So...?"

"They're all owned by shell corporations." She paused to take in his puzzled look and explained. They had time enough after all. "It's a way of disguising who's doing what. They're companies with no fixed assets of their own that are used to make transactions. Sometimes used to launder money or evade paying taxes."

Good enough. Steve nodded, and gestured for her to continue. "I get the idea."

"Well, local law enforcement in New York didn't go any farther, since all five shell corporations are legitimate and legal operations. No major irregularities ever noted in the books or strange activities on the market. They're all fairly small. But all of them are owned, indirectly of course, by Hammer Industries. Or rather, what's left of Hammer Industries."

Clint groaned loudly. That seemed to be a punchline. Steve didn't get it. "And this is significant."

"The only reason my face isn't buried in my hands, Cap," Clint put in, "is that I'm piloting right now. And I might anyway, if I can find us a patch of smoother air."

Steve hadn't noticed much in the way of turbulence, so he ignored that. "Why?"

Natasha raised one eyebrow eloquently. "What happened to catching up on current events?"

"Well, I've gotten as far as the mid-90s?" A lot of the more recent history was mired down in increasingly petty politics, and difficult to read about. "I'm guessing this is more recent."

"Justin Hammer, now-former-CEO of Hammer Industries, was Stark's main rival in the arena of military contracts for more than two decades. Until he aided and abetted the escape of Ivan Vanko, a Russian physicist who wanted Stark dead, and funded Vanko's plotted revenge, three years ago. He is -- or maybe I should say was, at this point -- doing jail time for his involvement."

Clint groaned again. "Would have been nice if that asshat had stayed gone." Natasha nodded, not bothering to reply verbally, but Clint seemed to understand regardless. "Also, what the fuck," he continued, "I thought he was still in jail."

"Insofar as SHIELD is aware, he still is. Agent Coulson is attempting to get confirmation."

Steve could suddenly understand why Clint wanted to bury his face in his palms. "And Hammer, what, wants revenge for trying to sabotage Tony and getting caught?"

"Well, Ms. Potts and I caught him, so most likely that's his angle. Hammer was furious when he was booked, and he has a fairly pronounced inferiority complex when it comes to Stark. Or anyone associated with him, and it doesn't get much closer than 'CEO and girlfriend'. Sure, they've split up fairly recently, but Hammer likely doesn't know that."

Hell. _Steve_ hadn't known that. He'd suspected, given that Tony had been very erratic for most of the last month, but not known. Unaware of his thoughts, Natasha continued, "add in the fact that he's always been jealous of Stark's brilliance and success..." She paused significantly then added, "there haven't been any ransom demands."

"Meaning?" Steve wasn't sure he followed her last logical jump.

"Meaning he wants something in addition to revenge," Clint supplied. "Sure you can handle that, Cap? After this, Hammer will know we have a soft spot for Stark a mile wide. Puts all of us square in the crosshairs, but the main focus will be on you."

Steve huffed, mildly offended. "Hawkeye, my uniform and shield are both _intended_ to be obvious targets. If you think I'm going to be put off by something like _that_ \--"

"I know, I know," Clint cut him off. "Chill."

The conversation faded into silence for a while. Natasha spent nearly two hours painstakingly disassembling, checking, and reassembling her gear. Steve had winced to see her cleaning the garrote wire, the previously whitish rag -- which Steve thought looked suspiciously like it had been torn off the hem of one of Tony's tank tops -- gaining a number of rusty red streaks before she decided the wire was clean enough.

Steve would have done the same, had he been carrying more than just his shield and a simple sidearm. It would have been something semi-productive to do to take his mind off the flight. They were still an hour out.

A half hour later, Coulson checked in to tell them he'd been able to find out nothing of interest, and that that in itself was suspicious. They were to keep an eye out for any indication as to Hammer's direct involvement, while he tried a few other channels.

Minutes later, Clint started a slow careful descent, aiming to put the 'jet down farther away this time. True, they'd have to walk farther, but having the element of surprise was worth the extra effort, in this instance.


	6. Chapter 6

"Oh, yes! Oh, yes, yes, yes. Is it my birthday?" A very irritatingly familiar male voice all but echoed down the corridor outside. A voice he hadn't heard in a while.

Tony was still gasping for air as he tried to recover from that last punch to his solar plexus, when he heard it. He thanked Thor -- again -- that he no longer had the arc reactor and accompanying weakness in his sternum as he tried to regulate his breathing to no avail.

But, fucking hell. That _couldn't_ be who he thought it was. That asshole was behind bars. Had been for nearly a year, now.

A moment later, the man continued, "You got them. You got them both. What did you do? _What_ did you _do_?"

He could no longer deny it. If he'd had the air in his lungs, Tony would have groaned. Fucking Justin Hammer was _here_? When had he escaped, and how? And, more importantly, why had no one thought to inform him or Pepper?

Hard on the heels of the thought, the door of the impromptu torture room opened, and carried with it a hint of overwhelming and expensive -- but bad -- cologne. "Tony, Tony, Tony," Hammer said conversationally as he strolled in, his Gucci suit somehow impeccable, "you look terrible."

"Well," Tony coughed to clear his throat and spat, making sure the mass landed messily near Hammer's shoe and perversely enjoying the disgusted flinch he got out of his opponent, "I haven't had a chance to hit Majorca yet this year, Justin."

Without another word, Hammer nodded to the goon still hovering at Tony's left, just outside of his peripheral vision. The goon punched Tony in the jaw, hard enough to rattle his teeth and his brains, rocking him on his feet. His nose, which had only just stopped bleeding, started again and some of the blood trickled down over his lips and chin as he did his damnedest to regulate his breathing. Carefully concealing his wince, Tony straightened, working his jaw and feeling some of the blood drip down farther. He wasn't sure where it landed. Didn't care, either. His jaw wasn't broken. It didn't matter if his tie or shirt got ruined.

On the other hand, one of his back teeth felt like it might be loose in its socket. Or whatever the medical term was. He was no dentist.

"Come on, now, Tony," Hammer said, lingering over Tony's name, his tone smugly superior, "it doesn't have to be this way. Just tell me what I want to know."

The door opened behind him as if on cue -- Hammer had always been a far better showman than inventor, not that that was saying much -- and two goons marched Pepper through the door. Tony could see her eyes widen as she took in his appearance, then narrow as she glared viciously at Hammer. "Justin," she acknowledged his existence, surprising Tony who'd expected her to outright ignore him. Her tone of voice was absolutely _icy_ , and it was turning Tony on a little.

But then, she always had been supremely poised in just about any situation.

And now was distinctly _not_ the time to let his mind wander. Tony forced his attention back to the scene unfolding before him.

"Ms. Potts," Hammer turned to her with what might have been a charming smile had it not been strongly flavoured with vindictiveness and rage. "I hope you're in the mood for a show, because that's what you're about to get."

Her eyes flickered over to Tony for a moment, and he tried to catch them to no avail. "I fail to see what part of this constitutes a show," she replied calmly.

"If anything it's more like a farce," Tony put in. "You can bet the team's on their way, and even that only matters if I don't get loose first and raze this place to the ground with you in it, Justin." Tony paused just long enough to enjoy the building rage on Hammer's face. "Have you ever seen what the Hulk does to his enemies? It's not pretty."

"You, Stark," Hammer spat, "are bluffing. And that's not going to work. You're going to tell me exactly what's behind that repulsor tech of yours, or your little slut of a girlfriend will have to watch you take the punishment for it. How long can you last? Hm? An hour? Two? It'll take at least twenty-four for anyone to even notice you're missing," Hammer sneered.

Obviously, Hammer hadn't been watching the news, or he'd already know that the kidnapping had been recorded. Tony was beyond sure that those cell phone recordings had made YouTube and Twitter in under five minutes. An amateur mistake. But then, Justin had always relied on other people to manage his PR for him.

With a gesture to the goons still in the room that they should continue what they'd been doing, Hammer settled in to watch.

Tony couldn't help the dark smirk that crossed his features. "The others might be worse, you know," he continued, picking the thread of his earlier musings right back up. "Even Cap can be _vicious_ when he wants to."

He didn't get an answer, and braced himself for whatever they were going to throw at him next.

What Hammer had just as clearly forgotten was the _months_ Tony had spent in Afghanistan, tortured by experts in their craft under worse conditions. This? This was a schoolyard fistfight in comparison. Almost literally. "Pretty sure I can outlast you any day, Justin," Tony taunted his ex-rival. "How long was it until your last girlfriend left you? A day?"

A punch landed at the corner of his mouth, and the metallic taste of blood flooded over his tongue. Spitting it out, he grinned at Hammer, the blood in his teeth only underscoring the tightly leashed ferocity of the expression. _You think this will break me, Justin?_

Pepper made a tiny distressed noise, making Hammer laugh gleefully. This time Tony managed to catch and hold her eyes, trying to project calm and control in between attempts to taunt Hammer again with the set of his shoulders and defiant expression. _I'm fine. I'm fine. Don't freak out on me now, Pep. Keep it together. You've seen me in worse shape._

By his calculations they had something like two hours to go before the team burst through the door. Tony squared his shoulders and set his stance. He had no intention of giving in. Especially not to Hammer of all people.

He lost track of time not long afterward, as the abuse started to blur into a stream of sameyness. They weren't even being creative about it. Just punching him and occasionally using some of their 'tools' fairly ineffectively.

It probably looked horrific, though, judging by Pepper's strained expression.

After that, Tony made sure he checked on her anytime there was no one was blocking their line of sight. He was trying to be better. Even if they had broken up and the thought still stung. And, watching her handle this with nerves of steel, Tony was suddenly sad all over again that they hadn't worked out as a couple. They'd agreed, albeit unwillingly on both their parts, _for pretty much exactly this reason_ , that dating was a Terrible Idea and would get one or both of them killed. Either out of worry or recklessness.

\------

Steve was jumping out of the 'jet before its wheels touched the ground; a thirty foot drop was nothing to him. He straightened, shield at his back and fiddling with his sidearm, and waited impatiently for the others to join him.

Luckily for his strained patience, the others were almost as anxious to get started as he was, and both were on the ground under a minute later, the 'jet automatically activating its defenses behind them. They were halfway through their hike to the base before any of them broke their silence.

"The compound layout is simple," Natasha said softly, "beyond the door is a two flight stairwell, feeding into a hallway that runs roughly north-south. On the north end are the weapons labs. South end contains the miserable excuse for living quarters and facilities."

Steve nodded. "JARVIS' tracker put our missing persons roughly at the northwest corner of the compound. We'll secure the living quarters first, then deal with the labs."

It wasn't much longer until they reached the compound, and Natasha effortlessly bypassed the piss-poor excuse for security the place had. It was nothing but a number pad? Seriously? Even Steve, who'd only been out of the ice for about nine months, knew better than to expect something like that to work.

The stairwell was dark, only barely lit by two miserable excuses for light fixtures, but the hallway at the bottom was passably lit. It was, however, also littered with junk and obstacles, as Natasha had described. Steve made a face. Whoever these guys were, cleanliness was not a thing they valued.

The living quarters didn't take long to secure. The three of them took the five occupants entirely by surprise, and they were all cuffed securely shortly afterward.

Steve let Clint call in the captured goons to Coulson, as he and Natasha left the room. The crash the heavy metal door of the living quarters made as it fell off its hinges and onto the floor was somehow satisfying.

\------

Some indeterminate time later, a crash echoed through the compound, and Tony chuckled to himself as all but one of the goons rushed out of the room. "What the fuck was that," Hammer asked the now-mostly-empty room.

Tony straightened, favouring his right side. One of the many repeated hits had done some damage, admittedly. It felt like one of his ribs was bruised or maybe fractured. "If I had to guess, that was probably the cavalry."

Pepper looked up at that. "About time."

"Cavalry?" Hammer looked confused for a moment, then tried to bolt for the door. Before he got to it, it opened with a squeal of bending metal as someone applied a lot of pressure to the deadbolt. Tony would have put money on it being Cap, had there been a betting pool. Pepper carefully edged out of the way, doing her best to be unobtrusive, then her expression went oddly resigned as it swung all the way open and banged against the wall, the knob leaving a sizable dent in the concrete. As though she'd been expecting it and was simultaneously relieved and disappointed that it had actually happened.

Hammer, his feet seemingly pinned to the floor by whatever emotions were running through him, went white as a sheet. Tony couldn't see who was standing on the far side of the door.

A moment later, Natasha was moving through the open door, her movements almost too fast to properly register, knocking Hammer to the floor and pinning him there far longer than was really necessary. And then, without missing a beat, Cap was taking out the last remaining guard with a punch to the solar plexus that Natasha followed up with a hit off a can of mace Tony was convinced she pulled out of hammerspace.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way to the floor, Hammer had apparently recovered his voice, and started whining. "Holy shit, woman, what the hell do you think you're-- OW! My elbow! Watch it! I'll sue the clothes off your b-- _ack_!"

Tony couldn't help laughing at his now totally helpless opponent despite the pain under his ribs as Natasha shifted her weight just enough that Hammer could breathe shallowly but not speak. "Watch it, Justin, you might make her mad."

Tony watched as Clint strolled through the door and started complaining at the other two of his teammates. "Fucking hell, you couldn't have saved me some of the fun?"

"Shut up, Hawkass," Tony rolled his eyes, "and come untie us."

Still grumbling under his breath, Clint complied, leaving Steve to cuff the goon and Natasha to her attempts to crush Hammer's resistance. She seemed to be enjoying it. Clint, naturally, released Pepper first, doing some trick with one of his arrows that made the cuffs just spring loose. When he walked over to deal with Tony's, Clint gave him an assessing look. "You look like you could use a medic, Iron Ass."

"Yeah, yeah." Tony tried to stand normally and had to give it up halfway through when the injury to his ribs protested hard enough to make him dizzy. He found himself staggering sideways and sliding down the wall behind him, just beside the damned bedframe. It didn't immediately sink in that Clint hadn't scooped him up with a shoulder under Tony's. But the hand grabbing his tie _definitely_ got his attention and he glanced down at it.

"So that's what I bled on," he noted to himself in a quiet mumble, his thoughts a bit scattered.

￼

When he refocused on Cap, the man had gone down on one knee and was using his other hand to brace himself against the wall for balance, still not letting go of the bloodstained tie. "Hi Cap," Tony smirked up at him. It made the bruises over his cheekbones sting and the shiner over his right eye force his eye shut. The split in his lower lip finally made itself known, only now noticeable. He didn't know why; maybe finally being free of the restraints was bringing the minor injuries to the foreground somehow.

All he got in return from Cap was a long measuring stare, and, confused, Tony started to try to push himself upright and off the floor. It didn't work, though, and he ended up stuck somewhere between shock and confusion. Cap had intercepted him as he tried to get up off the floor and was kissing him. _Cap was kissing him, holy shit._

It took Tony a few long seconds to get with the program and reciprocate. Giving up trying to understand what was going on, he just went with it, enjoying himself and completely ignoring his split lip and the taste of blood. None of it even mattered. Totally worth it.

Tony must have lost some more time after that, because the next thing he knew he was out of air, his hands had moved without his knowledge to curl tightly around handfuls of Cap's uniform as best he could manage it, and Natasha was clearing her throat pointedly to get Cap to release him. Tony tried quietly to catch his breath, again, and didn't release his hold on Cap. After a kiss like that -- not to mention the day he'd had -- he was damn well not going to let go anytime soon if he could help it.

"Save the rest of that for the trip home," Natasha suggested, and Tony grinned at the sight of the color creeping up under the collar of Cap's -- no, Steve's -- uniform. He'd had the man's tongue in his mouth, for fuck's sake. He could call Steve by his first name. And wasn't that weird. He'd gotten so used to calling the man 'Cap', in various forms, that 'Steve' felt almost off.

He hadn't ever allowed himself to think about this while he'd been with Pepper, and after they'd broken up, he'd, well, kind of gotten used to not allowing himself to actively think about it, despite the way Steve had seemed to flirt back, however cautiously.

On the other hand, even the memory of that kiss was quickly convincing Tony that keeping Steve nearby at all times was hardly a bad idea. Not if it got him toe-curling kisses like _that_.

For that matter, Steve had thrown caution to the wind with that leap of faith. It made Tony feel like he was in freefall even thinking about the situation, but he had been holding back and digging in his metaphorical heels for fear of hurting Pepper, even after they'd agreed to officially end things, for all that he no longer had to.

That definitely didn't mean she didn't still have an unofficial claim on his affections, or that they would never be official again -- well, until now, it appeared -- but if he pursued this… whatever it was… with Steve, it would mean letting go of the flicker of hope he'd still been holding onto that he could make things work with Pepper despite everything.

It wouldn't be fair to either of them otherwise; he and Steve could work out the precise details later. Tony had a feeling that he would insist on patching him up on the 'jet, in addition to coercing him into medical. He could almost feel the tension in Steve's shoulders from where he was sitting, leaning against the wall.

And, right now, the idea of flying home with a Steve-shaped body pillow sounded very nice. He hurt from the crown of his skull to his knees, and very much wanted to be horizontal for a while. And painkillers. Definitely painkillers.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he could convince Steve to cuddle him as he slept.

"Can you stand, Tony?"

The question refocused Tony's attention outwards, and it finally registered that they were alone in the room. He decided he didn't care what the others had chosen to do with Hammer, in the meantime. Whatever it was, wouldn't be undeserved. Especially if he'd managed to piss off Natasha or Clint. With a rueful expression, he replied, "I think so? Let's get the hell out of here."

FIN


End file.
